Just because I thought you'd like it.

The mailman brought me a package the other day.  It was a gift.  Just because she thought I'd like it.  That is just very nice.  It's actually incredibly and absolutely wonderful that she would do that for me.  Just out of the blue.  It came at just the right time to cheer me up and give me the warmest glow of gratitude.

The Usnea lichen is the most wonderful lichen and it doesn't grow here.  So receiving a thickly padded envelope was just fantastic (not to forget the Bay leaves that have been flavoring my dinners - lovely:).  I have been holding it and touching it and suppressing the thought that I can't possibly use it.  So I did use a part of it, precisely because I felt so reluctant.  I decided to put one third of it into alcohol for a tincture and I actually managed to do that.  The tincture will take about 6 weeks and then I have a wonderful medicine.  Usnea tincture is antibiotic, antibacterial, antifungal, astringent, antiviral, and diuretic.  I just finished a dose of penicillin to get rid of a constant fever.  No high temperatures, but just a little bit that didn't go away and made me lethargic and disinterested in everything.  So now I have to suffer the consequences of killing off every friendly bacteria in my body.  So lots of yoghurt.  I look forward to trying the Usnea next time I need to treat an infection.  No nasty side effects.

I had been blaming my genes and winter for my low.  I am inordinately proud of being a quarter German because here most people are just Icelandic.  Icelanders can trace their ancestry back to about 800 A.D. and sometimes even a bit further, usually to Norwegian kings.  Of course, wouldn't you know it, I'm really a princess!  And we are all pretty much related.  If you take any two Icelanders, you'll usually find a common ancestor in the 8th or 9th generation.  My husband and I are really far apart, only with common ancestors in the 10th generation.

But all that aside.  Americans were of course, when I moved there, not very impressed since everyone there is originally from somewhere else.  And I do not think the British, that I met when I lived there, were too impressed either.  But I enjoy being a bit different from my countrymen.  And it is with a bit of pride that I point to my German genes as an explanation for my dislike of cold weather and intolerance for the dark.  My German grandmother was very brave to marry my grandfather and move to Iceland in the 1920's.  They met when my grandfather was studying electrical engineering and working in the Siemens factory in Berlin.

She was a factory girl and she was poor.  Her father had shot himself in front of his wife and three young children after gambling, probably not the family fortune, but pretty much all they had.  So my grandmother, despite protestations from her family, who naturally didn't want her living amongst eskimos in igloos, left Berlin and moved to Husavik, a small village where my great grandfather was the owner of the local store and fairly well off.  My grandparents soon moved to Reykjavik and had three children, my mother being the youngest.  My grandmother did get to travel back to Germany and her family (tante Lotta and onkel Walter) came to visit her.  My grandfather was a senior civil servant, so they were comfortable.  But she died of bone cancer at 59.  I was four, but I have a few precious memories of her.  She was beautiful, she loved pretty things, and at the same time she was wonderfully thrifty.  I like to think I got that from her too.  My mother has the same reaction to winter as I do, but my father, who was from a very remote area far north, never seemed to feel it.  Of course that makes sense, it's just survival.  I'd have withered away and died in the middle ages up there.

But back to the Usnea.  The rest will go to dyeing wool.  A part will be used for dyeing some Alpaca wool in a water bath and a third (and what is left of the water bath lichen) will be fermented in ammonia to see what comes out of it.  I'm really feeling an excitement for dyeing now.  So much so that I was inspired to order a book about lichen dyeing (called Lichen dyeing) that I've been wanting, but has been out of print for the longest time.  And just magically it was available on Amazon.

And then the casing for my duvet arrived from Germany.  And it looks really good.  I love it and really, really want to get a new duvet soon.  Which will not happen since my recent bout of inertia has been rather all-encompassing and I haven't touched the Eiderdown, so still 200 grams.  Only 800 to go.  But I'm back in the swing of things, thoroughly fed up with doing nothing.  And Cocobong - thank you :)